separated him from other people, and since quitting his teaching
position, he had seen little of Viola or his other friends from that
life. Though intrigued by the news that he and Holly were sharing a
dream, though he had called her “refreshing,” though he was to some
degree attracted at her, he obviously resented her intrusion into his
solitude.
Holly said, “No good. You’ll be gone when I get here in the morning, I
won’t know where you went, maybe you’ll never come back.”
He had no energy for resistance. “Then stay the night.”
“You have a spare bedroom?”
“Yeah. But there’s no spare bed. You can sleep on the family-room
couch, I guess, but it’s damned old and not too comfortable.” , She
carried her halfempty beer into the adjacent family room, and tested the
sagging, brown sofa. “It’ll be good enough.”
“Whatever you want.” He seemed indifferent, but she sensed that his
indifference was a pretense. “You have any spare pajamas?”
“Jesus.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t bring any.”
“Mine’ll be too big for you.”
“Just makes them more comfortable. I’d like to shower, too. I’m sticky
from tanning lotion and being in the sun all afternoon.”
With the put-upon air of a man who had found his least favorite relative
standing on his doorstep unannounced, he took her upstairs, showed her
the guest bath, and got a pair of pajamas and a set of towels for her.
“Try to be quiet,” he said. “I plan to be sound asleep in five
minutes.”
Luxuriating in the fall of hot water and clouds of steam, Holly was
pleased that the shower did not take the edge off her beer buzz.
Though she had slept better last night than Ironheart claimed to have,
she had not gotten a solid eight hours in the past few days, and she was
looking for ward to a Corona-induced sleep even on the worn and lumpy
sofa.
At the same time, she was uneasy about the continued fuzziness of her
mind. She needed to keep her wits about her. After all, she was in the
house of an undeniably strange man who was largely a cipher to her, a
walking mystery. She understood little of what was in his heart, was
pumped secrets and shadows in greater quantity than blood. For all his
coolness toward her, he seemed basically a good man with benign
intentions, and it was difficult to believe that he was a threat to her.
On the other hand, it was not unusual to see a news story about a
berserk mass murderer who after brutally slaying his friends, family,
and coworkers was described by his astonished neighbors as “a really
nice guy.” For all she knew, in spite of his claim to be the avatar of
God, by day Jim Ironheart heroically risked his own life to save the
lives of strangers-and, by night, tortured kittens with maniacal glee.
Nevertheless, after she dried off on the clean-smelling, fluffy bath
towel, she took another long swallow of her Corona. She decided that a
full night of deep and dreamless sleep was worth the risk of being
butchered in her She put on his pajamas, rolled up the cuffs of the
pants and the sleeves.
Carrying her bottle of Corona, which still contained a swallow or two,
she quietly opened the bathroom door and stepped into the second-floor
hallway. The house was eerily silent.
Heading toward the stairs, she passed the open door of the master
bedroom and glanced inside. Extension-arm brass reading lamps were
mounted on the wall on both sides of the bed, and one of them cast a
narrow wedge of amber light on the rumpled sheets. Jim was lying on his
back in bed, his arms folded on the two pillows under his head, and he
seemed to be awake.
She hesitated, then stepped into the open doorway. “Thanks,” she said,
speaking softly in case he was asleep, “I feel a lot better.”
“Good for you.”
Holly entered the room and moved close enough to the bed to see his blue
eyes shining in the backsplash of the lamp. The covers were pulled up
past his navel, but he was not wearing pajama tops. His chest and arms